Now, at this point I was more intrigued than anything else. For years I've been curious about the etiquette of the massage parlor HJ. How do you ask for it? Does the woman get naked? Who does the towelling off after it's over? But rather than attack him with questions, I let him keep going, and in doing so found out something interesting.

CES officially kicked off on Monday, but there were a few press events happening as early as Saturday. That means that lots of the exhibitors came in at the end of the previous week to make sure things were getting set up right. The hotels knew that would be happening, so they started charging the elevated convention rate in the week before the actual show. The results were less tourists because of the elevated costs and less people moving around the strip, since everyone that was there was just hanging around the convention center.

How does that effect my cab driver's HJ? Well, without people to move around he couldn't make any money. "It was the worst weekend I've had in Las Vegas in 18 years," he told me. "I've got this girl that likes to give a little extra…she gets naked. But it's $50 just for the massage and then she wants $50 for the happy ending. I can't swing that after a bad weekend."

Had I been a rich, business-type, I would've tipped him a hundred and told him to get a handy on me. But I'm a lowly editorial person, so I handed him a five dollar tip and headed off. I asked some of my other cab drivers that week if they could confirm the CES drought and most of them agreed with their horny associate, but none of them had stories as charming as that first guy's. Hopefully his next weekend goes better and by Monday he'll be neck deep in table showers and blissful shame.